01 Early Life

1949: A first statement

"Nosissis, Possum, Bear, Urial Sheep, Nosissis". These were words a young woman heard as she was waiting to cross Port Road, Adelaide, to take her baby in a pusher to the baby care centre at Woodville. She was not initially sure what was going on. The woman was my mother, I was the baby. After looking around, she worked it out. The words were from my alphabet animal blocks. I associated the letter "R" with a Rhinoceros, and Possum was Opossum in the blocks. And, adjacent to the corner where we were crossing the road was a Robur Tea advertisement painted on a building wall so that it could be seen clearly from the Port Road. I still remember the location and the advertisement, and the route to the centre at Woodville. We only lived there until shortly after my third birthday but I do not know how old I actually was at the time of my statement. I was presumably older than when in the pram below.

Family background

For my first three years, I, as the first child, with my mother and father, lived in a modest four-room house at Kilkenny. I remember it quite well. A living area, a kitchen with a wood stove, dining area and adjacent copper for clothes-washing, and two bedrooms. In fact in 2016 it still looks exactly the same, although I assume it is upgraded inside.

That is me in the pram!

My father Jim was a bank teller with the Commonwealth Bank (although to later rise to the position of Chief Inspector in the Bank for South Australia, just below the State and Deputy State managers and earning an Omega gold watch for 40 years of service). He had been born in Gawler, now an Adelaide suburb but then a town to the north, where his father Bernard, who had migrated from England in 1912 with parents and siblings, was book-keeper for the butter and ice manufacturers Taylor Brothers (not related).

Bernard was a typical English gentleman, always helping people on the street, obviously serious about the integrity of his work, but also would get on to a vaudeville style stage to sing songs such as `Yes, we have no bananas, we have no bananas today!'.

My father's mother Doris had contracted tuberculosis before his birth and was separated from him as a result at birth, and he was an only child as Doris died from the illness a few months later. She was one of the first scholars at Methodist Ladies College and won prizes in various subjects there, including in mathematics, and a state prize for botany. Professionally she became a telephone operator but also she was a woodworker. She made the very fine hall seat at the entrance to my apartment in Canberra and passed on carpentry skills to my father (but not to me). Her much older sister, my father's maiden aunt, also made an unusual tapestry of the Adelaide Boer War Monument which I have in my basement shed.

Bernard and Doris are pictured below in 1919. Bernard, who would have come from an Anglican family, later married another woman, Vera, who for a long time I believed was my real paternal grandmother, until the real story was broken to me as a teenager. She certainly took the role of a real grandmother as far as I was concerned. As Bernard had married two Methodist women, he embraced Methodism to the level of being a senior part of their community, as local Treasurer, and although it would not have occurred to me as a child, he quietly abstained from alcohol, as the Methodist Church strictly observed this at the time.

Bernard had been Secretary of Taylor Bros in Gawler, but after the War he and Vera moved to Gawler to manage Sheards department store on Commercial Road, for his brother in law, Viv Sheard, possibly the wealthiest man in Mount Gambier. My first plane flight was in fact with Susan as a child in a DC-3 to Mount Gambier and we used to go there during summer holidays. This is referred in Chapter 2. When Bernard retired they came to live in Adelaide, at Tusmore, where Vera died first, on my 20th birthday, and Bernard died a few years later as my last surviving grandparent in 1968.

My mother Betty was born in Jamestown, in South Australia's mid-north. She was a bank ledger keeper, also in the Commonwealth Bank, where she had met Jim before the war. When the bank discovered they were an item they were physically separated to different parts of the main Adelaide office on King William Street. She was a smart cookie and had become third in the state in the book-keeping exams. She was proud that her academic achievements meant she could beat the boys. Her father Les was a stock and station clerk, born in Mount Gambier, with the pastoral company Elder Smith and her mother Alberta (Bertie, or more commonly, for a reason we didn't ever work out, Ol) had been a nurse, in fact the first registered nurse at Mt Gambier, where she met my grandfather. They are pictured below in 1948 at my Auntie Shirley's wedding.

I was close to all grand parents but particularly close to these, who I could ride my bike to, not far away, in Torrens Park, behind the train station. They were classic grandparents (as were the Taylors in Mt Gambier, it is so important for kids). My Nanna was a fantastic Nanna as was Pop as a Pop. She always had something in the fridge for us, her cooking was fantastic, her bed was nice to sleep in while she'd go to sleep in another room if I was there. She knew the Adelaide train network and would take us to Bridgewater, where we learned where all the tunnels were, out to Largs Bay sometimes to spend a day with her cousin, and frequently into the city, where we would shop at places like Myers, Charles Birks, John Martins and Mases meats, where I'd be given a slice of fritz (an Adelaide term for a processed meat) by the butcher, and sometimes return home by taxi instead of train if she was tired or heavily laden, or if it was raining.

Pop, with his stock experience, would take me to the Adelaide Show, always focused on the animals rather than sideshows, which prepared me for a brief later life as a stud book cattle breeder. We were thoroughly spoiled. Also once I picked up a newspaper there, in which on the front page of Murdoch's News (after which News Limited is named), the afternoon paper in Adelaide at the time, as a 9-year-old I read about the Manchester United air crash, with photos of various deceased, injured and surviving players, and it disturbed me so much as a young boy I became a fan of the club, it seems, for life.

Nanna died after a fall in 1962, knowing my mother was expecting a third child, while Pop lived a year or so longer, knew our young brother and died shortly after the 1963 Melbourne Cup where he had tipped the winner, Gatum Gatum, at 33/1. Attitudes to death were interesting. Even though I was 15 when Nanna died, I was not allowed to attend Nanna's funeral, as it was thought too sad for a young person, but when Pop died (he smoked and particularly suffered in his last years from Emphysema and coughed badly) I resisted, and insisted on attending.

Back to my parents. Jim had volunteered for the Australian Army in World War 2, and was posted to the 2/9th Armoured Regiment, originally destined for North Africa. But the Japanese had entered the war in 1941, the tank regiments returned to Australia, and this regiment was at least first held back in defensive positions in case of Japanese land invasion, but also held back for eventual deployment in the Borneo landings of 1945, where he took part in the Labuan landing.

The Australians were under the command of US General Douglas Macarthur. Australians were given responsibility for a major landing on Borneo in June 1945, while US troops landed about the same time in the Philippines. Basically 60,000 Australian troops all landed on Borneo on within a few days of each other, about 20,000 in each of three different sites. Dad was in the Labuan landing. I visited in 2004 Port Victoria Beach there where the monument states:

THE LIBERATION OF LABUAN (1945)

The landing of the Allied Forces under the command of General Douglas McArthur on the island of Labuan on 10th June 1945 led to the liberation of Labuan and British North Borneo. An operation called Oboe Six was launched by the 24th Brigade of the 9th Australian Division headed by Major General George F Wootten with the help of American and British Air and Naval Forces. The Allied Forces left Morotai Island in early June 1945 and reached Labuan on the 9th June 1945. By the 10th June 1945 Labuan was under massive bombardment by the Allied Forces and the 9th Australian Division Army landed at Port Victoria Beach. The heavy bombardment caused the devastation of Port Victoria and the surrounding area.

On 10th September 1945 Lieutenant General Masao Baba, Commander of the 37th Japanese Army, formally signed the instrument of surrender at Layang Layangan Beach before Major General George F Wootten. Labuan became the first British Colony to be liberated from the Japanese, a few months ahead of Malaya. Labuan was placed under British Military Administration (BMA) before being made a colony of British North Borneo on 18 July 1946.

Jim and Betty married in 1943 during leave and Betty was allowed to continue working due to the war situation, but required to resign at the conclusion of the war because jobs were only for breadwinners (who were assumed to be males).

Born in January 1947 I was a genuine "baby boomer"! And still am!

1949: My sister

At one time late in 1949 my mother had gone to hospital and I may not have been told the implications, except I was assured she was OK.

My father said he would take me for a ride and we would see her. We had a car, even in those days, a Ford Prefect, and we traveled to North Adelaide and parked near the golf course opposite Calvary hospital, where I had been born.

In those days hospitals were very strict about visitors to maternity wards and the only way I could see my mother, at my age, was to stand outside the hospital grounds, and view her.

My mother appeared on the balcony, with another baby in her arms. I vividly remember this with some mixed feelings. I would no longer have a monopoly with my mother's affections, and would now have to share this with a baby who may take more attention. I certainly went home to some extent upset.

With time I got over it. There we are above in 1950. Susan and I have been very close, in growing up and sometimes later through difficult times, and more emails in these modern times between me and her than with anyone else. Much of this is often based around tracing ancestors and their movements and habits.

1950: Moving home

At the beginning of 1950 we moved out of our house, which I believe was rented, to a house which my parents bought in Edwardstown, in a Housing Trust Estate in Adelaide's southern suburbs. Housing was particularly hard to find after the war, and even the house at Kilkenny had been difficult to find, so my parents were very excited to be able to establish their own household, pictured below in 1956. (It looks exactly the same in 2014.)

Edwardstown was a working class, industrial suburb. Iconic industries along our part of the South Road were Hills Industries (which invented there the Hills Hoist clothes line), printers Lamson and Paragon, and Berger Paints.

Our local member was Mr Frank Walsh, leader of the Opposition Labour Party during many years of conservative Playford Governments, but he did eventually topple Playford, overcoming a gerrymander, and became the first Labour Premier for many years. He always attended government school speech days in his electorate, exhorting students not to go on to private schools and generally he was a typical old-fashioned Labor man.

1950: Pearson Street

Our particular street was behind a South Road hotel, the Avoca, which is still there in 2013, and on Saturday afternoons was parked full of cars past our house. In those days there was 6 o'clock closing and at that time, the patrons, mostly men, well fortified, would emerge and drive their cars home.

There were no kerbs or gutters in our street for many years. We were serviced by a milkman, and a baker with horse and cart. One of our neighbours would go on to the street with shovel and pan after George the baker had passed to take any manure he could find for his garden.

The new house had three bedrooms, so Susan and I now each had our own rooms. There was in the house just one toilet and a bath room with a bath and gas fired shower, which needed matches to light. The laundry had a copper, still the main necessity for clothes washing, and two tubs connected by a rolling press for the clothes to eventually pass through for the final stage in pure water after the hot soapy wash. These were the days before washing machines. My mother had a similar configuration in Kilkenny and my grandmother in Torrens Park also.

At the back was a lawn for cricket, a barbecue, fruit trees and an extensive vegetable garden. In the garage my father had a work bench and carpentry lathe. He had acquired a skill for carpentry which seems to have been inherited from his mother, even though he was never with her. We still have a hall seat, a remarkable feat of carpentry, which my grandmother who even my father, her son, never knew, made, and it is my apartment in Canberra. It is incredible. The gene did not progress to the next generation. My father was a fantastic carpenter, but I never had any leanings at all this way.

1951: Life in Pearson Street

Virtually everyone in the street knew each other. Most families had young children. The children would walk into each others' houses as if they were their own homes. At our end of the street almost all the children were boys, so Susan would have seen this from a likely different perspective.

At our end of the street, particularly the Hawkes and Griffens, things in common were the church, particularly Sunday School, and later kindergarten and scouts. As a group we would go to Sunday School, on the corner of South Road and Dinwoodie Avenue, together. The kindergarten was on Dinwoodie Avenue. So we would often walk past the fish and chips shop near the corner of Avenue Road for a Coke. While in there it was not uncommon for bodgies and widgies to pull up on their motor bikes, and in their leather jackets, to pull up and come inside.

They were terrifying to witness, but in fact they were well behaved. They would choose a rock and roll record from the machine, and maybe play one of the indoor games.

Between Alex Stoumbas' fish shop on the corner of South Road and Pearson Street and the fish shop where the bodgies and widgies hung out, nearer Avenue Road, was where the "Institute" and the main grocer were, where my parents would often send me to stock up. The Institute was also the local picture theatre where we would often go, with the movies preceded by newsreels which would give us the only visuals we would get in those days of recent news events. The grocer was a Four Square grocer. I see Four Square, with the same logo, still continues as a brand in New Zealand. But in those days there were no supermarkets. You ordered from the front counter and the grocer would go to his various shelves one by one to put your order together. In our later time at Pearson Street, perhaps in the later 1950s, supermarkets began to emerge, and my mother would often drive to the Tom the Cheap Grocer, at Colonel Light Gardens, on Goodwood Road, which had replaced a picture theatre there. In fact Tom would be very cheap, leaving the products in cartons, with their tops cut off, on the shelves.

In those early years of the 1950s not many people had cars, so a lot of sharing took place. We were one of only about three families in the street with a car (a Ford Prefect which needed a crank for starting) and we would have frequent sometimes quite insistent requests from neighbours to take them somewhere, most of which we tried to oblige. Often these neighbours would sit in the boot, which was not difficult, as our boot was top-opening and one could open it and sit in it enjoying the ride. No safety belts in those days either.

For many years, even into the eighties, Australian houses would be serviced daily by a milko, who would bring fresh milk in the evenings. In the early 1950s, though we would additionally be serviced by a baker, with horse and cart, and we would work out our orders and look out for him. One enthusiastic neighbour, as noted also above, would always emerge shortly after with a shovel and bucket and take possession of any manure which may have been deposited by the horse.

1951: Fundraising and parents' social life

Our parents in these early post-war times were socially active. Every Saturday night there was a party. If it was not at our house Susan and I were taken also and slept in the car while the party was on. I can only assume we were safe in those days. Because I was bigger I would get the back seat. At the end of the party Mum and Dad would return, we would be woken up and we'd return home. There was no concept of babysitters as far as I can tell.

Our father was, probably due to his banking experience, an excellent fundraiser, and many of these parties were connected with fundraising either for the church or kindergarten. One of the more memorable events was a "most popular child" contest for the kindergarten. Susan won this, without knowing too much about it, and had her photo in the Sunday Mail, after a particular set of fundraisers in which my father's specialty was to have betting on a spinning horse-racing wheel, which I still have (and the bookies' board). The odds on each spin appear to have been about 20% in his favour.

Not all the parties at our house were fundraisers. We always hosted the annual New Years Eve party, which was quite theatrical. One of the older residents in the street (Alec Hawke, father of my friend Peter Hawke across the road), would dress up in robes as old father time and walk in slowly about 5 minutes before midnight waving the year goodbye. Shortly afterwards another (younger) neighbour, clothed only in a nappy, would be brought in on a wheelbarrow, blowing whistles and ushering in the young New Year.

1951: Kindergarten

I attended kindergarten in 1951. This was the South Australian terminology for what is called pre-school in the eastern states. There was a Kindergarten Union which ran these establishments at the time and they were independent of the schools it seems. The one I attended was in the Nieass Reserve, basically a hut in Dinwoodie Avenue, which also served as the local scout hall.